Category Archives: music and singing

Sometimes I like to scroll through this blog for the fun of it, as if I’m walking down Memory Lane to revisit writings about Memory Lane! In addition to enjoying periodic nostalgic memories, I’m reminded of where my own cultural center of gravity is located. I am, at heart, a middlebrow kind of guy, grounded in the late 20th century. Here are 25 reasons why, many of which are drawn from previous posts:

My MP3 music lists include the likes of 80s and 70s pop hits, old standards featuring music of the Gershwins and Cole Porter, and soundtracks & cast recordings of classic musicals by Rodgers & Hammerstein.

I still have much of No. 1 on CDs.

I like Stouffer’s French Bread pizza.

I belong to the Book-of-the-Month Club and occasionally hunt down past BOMC premium books on e-Bay.

I make my coffee using a drip coffee maker and pre-ground beans.

Despite my dovish leanings, I enjoy watching old World War Two movies.

I will indulge myself with an occasional Big Mac.

I own, and sometimes even read into, a pre-owned set of the Harvard Classics.

Give me the voices of Olivia Newton-John and Karen Carpenter over those of most of today’s female pop singers any day.

I miss American Heritage magazine.

I love watching re-runs of The Dick Van Dyke Show on Netflix.

I still regard Baskin-Robbins ice cream as a treat.

My leisure reading tastes go to mysteries and suspense, sports books (baseball, football, basketball), and popular history, as well as self-help and psychology.

Walter Cronkite remains for me the iconic example of a television newscaster with utmost integrity.

Given a choice, I’ll take a casual meal at a favorite diner over a fancy meal with multiple forks.

I’ve been a steady subscriber to Sports Illustrated for decades.

My first computer was a Commodore 64, and I got years of use and fun out of it!

I continue to rely on Rick Steves for travel advice when planning blessed trips to Europe.

When it comes to discovering my favorite genre of music — old standards by the Gershwins, Cole Porter, Sinatra, and the like — I’m a bit of a late bloomer. Not until moving to New York for law school would I start discovering this wonderful music. In fact, I can pinpoint the evening in front of the TV set when began to realize the brilliance of George and Ira Gershwin.

Late in 1991, I was watching “The Tonight Show” with Johnny Carson, and among Johnny’s guests was a young man who sang and played on the piano a couple of classic Gershwin tunes. His name was Michael Feinstein, and he was performing numbers from his first album, “Pure Gershwin.” (Today, of course, Feinstein is a star in his own right, having built a wonderful career out of preserving and promoting the Great American Songbook.)

Well folks, a lightbulb went off. I had been familiar with the works of the Gershwins and enjoyed them, but upon watching Feinstein on TV, I knew that I wanted to listen to more. The next day, I went to Tower Records in the Village and bought the cassette (yup, cassette) version of “Pure Gershwin.” I played that tape to death on my Sony Walkman and eventually had to replace it.

Fast forward to today, I have stacks of CDs containing different renditions of the Gershwins’ music, including Ella Fitzgerald, Maureen McGovern, Sinatra, and more from Feinstein.

In the weekly voice class I take and the periodic open mic cabaret nights I attend, it’s not unusual for me to sing a Gershwin number.

Recently I went to a Boston Pops concert featuring the music of the Gershwins, and the finale was a brilliant, moving performance of George’s masterpiece, “Rhapsody in Blue.”

Boston Pops concert (photo: Adeline Moya)

Okay, so here’s my what-if, time-travelish, is-life-that-random question: What if I had not caught that episode of “The Tonight Show” back in 1991? Would this body of music mean so much to me today? What would my music collection look like? Would I be singing something else in my voice class? Would I even be taking a voice class at all? Are such discoveries completely random or somehow part of a grander scheme?

Like this:

One of life’s little pleasures is getting lost in the world of YouTube music videos. I can watch some of these over and again. Here are a few of my repeat favorites:

If you need an energy boost, does it get any better than Duran Duran’s “Hungry Like The Wolf”? The early to mid 80s is one of my favorite pop music periods. On my iPad I have a music compilation of favorite songs from that time, and Duran Duran singles are prominent among them.

I spent a chunk of the weekend watching and re-watching the incredibly hilarious number from Mel Brooks’s “The Producers” (1967 movie version), “Springtime for Hitler.” With every viewing, I keep finding new things to laugh at. (If you know the movie, then the quick cut to Kenneth Mars at around 2:18 is a guaranteed crack up.) From the lyrics, to the choreography, to the crowd reaction, it is singularly brilliant.

“Carousel” is one of the darkest shows of the Rodgers & Hammerstein canon, and it also has one of the most beautiful scores. This London performance of the ballet scene with Louise and the Fairground Boy, featuring Dana Stockpole dancing to “If I Loved You,” is simply exquisite.

One of the very best opening movie scenes ever produced is that from Woody Allen’s “Manhattan,” set to George Gershwin’s lush, beautiful “Rhapsody in Blue.” It is a loving tribute to the Wonder City.

Cole Porter’s “Anything Goes” is one of the best shows ever produced. This Tony Awards performance of the title number, featuring the awesome Sutton Foster, is worth multiple viewings.

I love this Antwerp train station flash mob performance of a rocked up version of “Do Re Mi” (from “The Sound of Music”). It is so much fun to watch, over and again.

My favorite scene from my favorite movie: Gene Kelly singing and dancing to the title number is truly one of the most joyous scenes in the history of motion pictures. I first saw “Singin’ in the Rain” during a study break while in my first year of law school at NYU, a Sunday night screening at the legendary Theatre 80 on St. Mark’s Place. I knew before it was even half over that I was watching something special.

Olivia Newton-John singing “Magic” in 1980 on “The Midnight Special.” It doesn’t matter that she’s lip-syncing. How many of us had monster crushes on her? (If the comments are any indication, we still do.) Sigh, what a contrast to today’s voice synthesized pop tarts.

And finally, some (probably unintended) humor. It appears that Lawrence Welk had no idea that “One Toke Over the Line” was about smoking pot, not — in his words — a “modern spiritual.” I crack up every time I watch it.

Share this:

Like this:

Ear worms are those tunes we just can’t get out of our heads. Especially for members of Generation Jones (born 1954 through 1965), I’m guessing that the early 70s produced a lot of ear worm tunes. To test that theory, and our memories, I’ve put together 25 first lines of pop songs (all different artists) from that era. Let’s see how many you can get right:

“Jeremiah was a bullfrog…”

“What if birds suddenly appear…”

“Who can take a sunrise…”

“Goodbye to you, my trusted friend…”

“I was born in the wagon of a traveling show…”

“He was born in the summer of his 27th year…”

“Hey girl, what ya doin’ down there…”

“You and I must make a pact…”

“Stayed in bed all morning just to pass the time…”

“There’s a port, on a western bay…”

“I’m sleeping, and right in the middle of good dream…”

“We’ll be fighting in the streets…”

“She packed my bags last night, pre-flight…”

“Waiting for the break of day…”

“There’s a spark of magic in your eyes…”

“The marchin’ band came down along Main Street…”

“Mother, mother, there’s too many of you crying…”

“We can never know about the days to come…”

“I can tell you’ve been hurt, by that look on your face girl…”

“Well the South Side of Chicago…”

“Daddy was a cop, on the east side of Chicago…”

“She ain’t got no money…”

“Day after day I’m more confused…”

“Our love is like a ship on the ocean…”

“I road my bicycle past your window last night”

Okay, have all your answers ready? Check out the answer key below, right under the album pic! If you got 15 or more right, then consider yourself a member or honorary member of Generation Jones!

In looking back at 2015, one of the highlights for me was doing more singing. Previously I’ve written about the weekly singing classes I’ve been taking for years at an adult education center in Boston (e.g., here and here). From those classes has emerged a cohort of folks who have moved their singing up a notch to participate in cabaret-style open mic nights at a nearby club. It means that during some weeks, we’re standing up to sing in front of others on multiple occasions!

Most of us are not experienced performers; many among our group haven’t done any real singing since school days. We have all felt the butterflies in facing an audience to sing alone. Yet we are drawn to this activity because it brings us great satisfaction and enjoyment. For me, it’s a chance to revel in the old standards that I’ve been drawn to for years. Give me the Great American Songbook stuff from the 20s through 50s any day, and I’ll be happy.

There is a therapeutic component as well. Singing is a form of mindfulness practice for me. It’s an invitation to be in the moment, doing something enjoyable. In both singing class and open mic nights, enthusiastic, supportive applause is the norm, with not a boo to be heard. Both settings provide safe, positive environments, shared with a wonderful group of people.

With these experiences at the core, I’ve noticed that singing has manifested itself in other venues of my life as well, including karaoke nights with (of all people) law professors and lawyers, an annual workshop on human dignity, and even a traditional Thanksgiving feast with family and friends. It’s good for the soul, and I look forward to doing more of it during the year to come.

Like this:

Thursday night kicked off the NFL season, which for several million fans also meant the beginning of fantasy football. Somehow I find myself in three fantasy leagues this fall, which means that I’ll be managing the fortunes of three fake football teams: The JP (Jamaica Plain) Storm, the JP Blizzard, and the JP Nor’easters.

Fantasy football offers an added element of fandom. In addition to following your favorite pro team(s) (in my case, primarily the Chicago Bears, and secondarily the New England Patriots), you follow the individual statistical performances of players you’ve drafted for your fake teams.

Sometimes the scoring systems are simple, such as that in the league I organized, where points are awarded almost exclusively on actual scoring. This means that when one of your players scores a touchdown, that six points goes to your team. Easy peasy! Other scoring systems are much more complex, using a longer list of statistical measures.

For me, the start of the NFL season also signifies the “real” start of fall, even if the official seasonal change doesn’t occur until later this month. And here in the Boston area, it just so happened that an early September heat wave cooled off markedly for Thursday’s first Patriots home game in nearby Foxborough.

But there are healthy limits to this fandom. On Wednesday evening, for example, I missed the real-time player draft for one of my fantasy football leagues in order to sing at an open mic cabaret night at a club here in Boston. (The Yahoo! fantasy football platform made my picks for me, based on a player ranking list I compiled.)

I wrote previously that I’ve been taking a weekly singing class for many years, and more recently I’ve been joining friends from that class at open mic nights. Over the weekend I had practiced a duet number with one of my friends, “Somewhere Out There” from An American Tail. We performed it on Wednesday night and did a fine job! (Actually, she did great with it, but I felt a little shaky in parts.)

Singing is very therapeutic for me, a form of mindfulness that allows me to be in the moment in a very good way. Performing favorite songs and listening to others do the same is a genuine treat. Following my fake football teams online is fun, but live singing with good company is much, much better.

Okay, students of the Great American Songbook, think now: What iconic popular song embodies the historic city of Boston? What tune did Sinatra croon that captures Beantown?

If we’re being honest, no such song exists.

I’m sorry, but while the Standells’ “Dirty Water (Boston You’re My Home)” from the late 60s is a popular number around these parts (listen to a live performance here), it falls short of city theme status. Over 60 years ago, the Kingston Trio did a fun little banjo song, “M.T.A.,” about a man named Charlie who was trapped in the Boston subway system; it was recorded as a protest to a potential fare hike. (Listen/watch here.) Ummm, that’s not exactly a great anthem either.

Frank Sinatra and his buddies made a lot of songs famous, including several selections that seem to endorse these hipper cities as cooler than cool. The theme from “New York, New York”, “I Left my Heart in San Francisco”, “My Kind of Town (Chicago)” … think about it.

So, here’s my opinion on how to begin to solve this issue: what this city needs more than anything is a swanky jazz standard about our awesome city. Consider this a summer project. We’re putting together a contest to see who can write the best song. We’re looking for something super cool, maybe slightly wistful, that shows a completely un-ironic love of Boston. The best entry we receive will get recorded, hopefully with a Frank Sinatra impersonator and full orchestra if we can swing it. Official details to follow soon.

I don’t know if their project ever got off the ground.

My read on it

Great, cosmopolitan cities have playful styles that have expressed themselves in music and song. It’s why, for example, Sinatra could croon unofficial city anthems like “New York, New York” and “Chicago (That Toddlin’ Town)” in ways that evoke deep, rich feelings about those places.

In my not-so-humble opinion, the core of Boston’s traditional culture has historically lacked a certain joie de vivre. Its essence has been, well, kind of serious, and often uptight and controlling. It has an earned reputation of not being the friendliest place for newcomers. It also has the nastiest, most aggressive, least predictable drivers I’ve ever encountered — and I’m speaking solely as a pedestrian!

As I’ll suggest below, some of these elements are softening. However, during the heart of the century that produced the Great American Songbook, they were fairly baked into the culture of this city. That’s not exactly the makings of a Cole Porter classic.

Boston as music maker

But there’s a twist, and it’s a positive one: There is a lot of music made in Boston! Not only is Greater Boston home to major conservatories, the Boston Symphony, and the Boston Pops, but also it hosts an abundance of amateur and professional venues for playing and singing music of all types.

In his book Greater Boston (2001), urban historian Sam Bass Warner, Jr., opines that among its cultural traditions, Boston’s most notable one may well be “the making of music.” “On any given night,” he observes, “the Boston city region sends more musical sounds towards the heavens than any other American place except such giants as New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles.” Amateur singers and musicians play a meaningful role in the creation of this musical culture.

And you don’t even have to be a star in the making to find a place to play or sing, as my own experience attests. As I wrote last year, for many years I’ve been taking a weekly voice workshop at an area adult education center, taught by Jane Eichkern, a Juilliard-trained vocalist. Jane has built this class around the idea of a supportive, encouraging, and safe place to learn how to sing. And more recently I’ve been joining fellow voice class students for open mic cabaret nights at a local club.

Infused by newcomers

Here’s an interesting, unscientific trend that I’ve noticed about many folks who take the voice workshop: A good number of them are from other places, even other countries. Their personal backgrounds and occupations vary greatly. But they all have that twinkle in the eye and that dose of fortitude that are pretty much necessary to get up in front of a roomful of strangers (at least at the beginning, for it’s a very friendly group) and sing.

They capture for me a more joyful side of the city, one that helps to transform a place known more for its stiffness into one that has a song in its heart, at least within some circles.

Truly great cities are infused by newcomers. The newbies introduce different perspectives and world views. They offer their special qualities to the metropolitan mix. And they’ve already demonstrated a willingness to take a chance on something new, even if it’s a little scary.

Hmm, that does sound a lot like our weekly singing classes.

The music in me

It took me a while to realize how important this singing class has been to me, and, correspondingly, just how important music is to my life. For insight, I draw upon the work of my late good friend John Ohliger, a pioneering adult educator, public intellectual, and community activist. (Go here for a book chapter I wrote about him.) John’s short unpublished memoir, My Search for Freedom’s Song (1997), was constructed around the theme of music:

I can’t read music, I can’t play an instrument, and I don’t sing very well. But, looking back at my first 70 years, music has graced much of my life. Much of the time I find myself singing, humming, or whistling, softly or silently to music. I almost always associate music with good feelings — feelings of wholeness — in a fragmented personal and political world.

Like John, I can’t read music or play an instrument. (I do think I sing pretty well!) And like John, I now understand how “music has graced much of my life.” Thanks largely to participating in this ongoing, shared experience of singing, I also appreciate how music helps me cope with “a fragmented personal and political world.” For me, singing is a unique form of mindfulness, an invitation to be in the present. That’s a pretty cool way to spend one’s time, and in good company as well.

Share this:

Like this:

A wonderful 1980s Book-of-the-Month Club music collection, Songs of New York

In my not-so-humble opinion, what separates a truly iconic city from many other fine places is that the great 20th century lyricists and composers wrote songs and music about them. They are the stuff of the Great American Songbook (and that of London and Paris, too).

Here are some of my favorite songs about New York, San Francisco, Chicago, London, and Paris. Sinatra versions predominate; he knew how to croon tunes about great cities.

Click, listen, watch, and enjoy.

***

When I decided to go to law school at NYU in New York City in 1982, I did so sight unseen. I didn’t have much money, so I evaluated law schools by studying their catalogs and consulting write-ups about them in published guidebooks. (This was pre-Internet, of course!) I finally saved up enough cash to visit New York for the first time, during the summer before starting law school. I came back knowing that I had made the right decision. Sinatra’s “New York, New York” quickly became my personal anthem, and it still gives me goosebumps to listen to it.

“Take Me Back to Manhattan” is a Cole Porter number often included in productions of Anything Goes. This version was performed by Judy Kaye for a 1980s collection, Songs of New York (pictured above).

True, “Rhapsody in Blue” is a musical composition, not a song. But as this video set to George Gershwin’s masterpiece will attest, it is a perfect ode to New York City. I can listen to it over and again.

The “Lullaby of Broadway” was written in 1935 and is now part of stage versions of 42nd Street. This is a great video of the 1980s Broadway production, starring Jerry Orbach (later of Law & Order) in the lead role, which I saw in 1984.

When I opted for law school in New York, it marked one of my early forks in the road. Before deciding to go east, I had looked very, very hard at schools in California and, especially, in the Bay Area. On occasion, but without regrets, I’ll wonder what if. “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” by Tony Bennett gets me nostalgic for a city I’ve only visited.

I grew up in northwest Indiana, right across the state border near Chicago. I took Chicago for granted back then, but today I appreciate it as a big, brawny, quintessential American city. “Chicago (That Toddlin’ Town)” is my favorite song about the Windy City, and no one does it better than Sinatra.

“My Kind of Town” is Sinatra’s other tribute to Chicago, and it’s a great song too.

“A Foggy Day (in London Town)” is part of the George and Ira Gershwin songbook, and it sounds especially fine with Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong doing the honors.

“A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square” is a wonderfully evocative song about London during the Second World War era, here performed by the incomparable Vera Lynn. It’s one of my favorites, one that I sing often in my weekly voice class and at open mic nights.

“I Love Paris” is another Cole Porter standard from the early 50s, just years after the end of the war. Sinatra captures the city’s beauty in this rendition.

***

What? No song about Boston, the city in which I’ve lived for over 20 years? Sadly, no. Boston has its attractions, but there’s no classic standard to mark it. I’ll have more to say about that in a future post.

When Glee (Fox) came onto the scene in 2009, it was all the buzz due to its edgy humor and snappy musical numbers, built around the ongoing fortunes of a high school glee club in small-town Ohio. It quickly gave notice that it would tackle, often in unorthodox fashion, topics such as teenaged angst, sexual orientation, jock culture, bullying, and the dynamics of a dysfunctional American high school.

Glee‘s ensemble cast of emerging stars, including Lea Michele as ingenue Rachel Berry and Broadway veteran Matthew Morrison as glee club director Will Shuester, would be joined regularly by notable guests drawn from stage and screen, some jumping into self-mocking roles.

The show was nominated for a slew of Emmy awards following its first full season. That would prove to be its high water mark, for although Glee would continue to have a core of devoted fans, it would soon lose some of its novelty. It also experienced real-life tragedy when Corey Monteith, a beloved core cast member, lost his battle with drug addiction and died due to an apparent overdose.

When Glee appeared, I found myself comparing it to another TV depiction of high school, the brilliant (and criminally overlooked) Friday Night Lights, a drama about life and football in small town Texas. With a few exceptions, the story lines and dialogue in Friday Night Lights were pitch perfect, even when dealing with sensitive subjects such as race or abortion.

By contrast, Glee has been a hot mess, sometimes nailing its messages, other times eliciting grimaces, but almost always in an entertaining mode. Pushing the envelope via a quirky mix of humor, music, and emotional drama is not an easy thing to do on network TV, but Glee has succeeded more often than not.

I haven’t been a steady Glee viewer. Like others, I was drawn to it at the beginning, and then kind of lost interest. But I’ve decided to tune in for the final season, and it has proven rewarding. On the whole, Glee has been good for television and spoken to a lot of kids (and some adults) who have felt like misfits while navigating the halls of their high schools and life in general.

I’ve watched American Idol for about half of the show’s 14-year run, with an increasingly predictable if odd viewing pattern: I enjoy the early audition weeks, and then I steadily lose interest as the contestant group keeps getting winnowed down toward the winner.

Once the judges must give way to the audience vote, my interest wanes considerably. The audience voting patterns are downright bonkers at times, and it appears that the biggest voting bloc is made up of young women and girls who madly stuff the ballot box for their top Idol crushes.

However, the audition weeks, during which the judges go around the country to pick the most promising contestants based on short performances, are easily my favorite part of the show.

Yes, I know that the producers shamelessly create rags-to-riches stories or tales of overcoming huge odds to describe contestants’ paths to Idol, but I fall for them just the same. I enjoy rooting for those folks to get their ticket to the next step — Hollywood Week — and thus move toward becoming potential finalists.

In recent years, Idol has cut down on its practice of making fun of offbeat or untalented auditioners, and I’m glad about that. The real pleasure is in hearing what comes out of the mouths of unknown performers, and sometimes being blown away. And for successful contestants, getting that ticket to Hollywood makes for moments of pure joy.

So here’s to the new season of American Idol, or least the first few weeks of it!